Tf>e Cultivated Forests of Carope 



By A. Knechtel. 



THE general interest in forestry affairs which now occupies largely the 

 attention of the people in this country, has led to discussions in which 

 European forestry methods are frequently referred to as a desirable system 

 to be followed in the management and exploitation of American woodlands. In view 

 of this fact it may be well for the casual reader, who is interested in this subject, to 

 devote a little time to a study of the methods employed in the maintenance and 

 management of European forests in order to determine how far they are applicable 

 to the lumber business, and to forestry in general, in our own land. 



It would be impossible, within the limited scope of this article, to discuss all 

 the questions involved, but a brief statement of the salient facts, together with 

 a short description of certain fundamental and controlling conditions, may assist 

 largely in understanding the differences which necessarily exist in the conduct of 

 the business as now carried on in the two countries. 



Nor is it intended that this article shall be especially instructive to foresters. 

 It is written rather with the hope that it may interest the general reader, 

 permitting him to consider certain forest conditions without having his patience 

 taxed with mathematical calculations or technical phraseology. 



Wi)% tl)e Forests Are Clean. 



In the cultivated forests of Europe the absence of underbrush and fallen, 

 decaying logs and limbs, the density of the forest, and the even distribution of 

 trees, often planted in long, straight rows, arrest immediately the attention 

 of the American visitor. One can stroll with comfort among the trees, or drive 

 anywhere among them, except, of course, where the hills are too steep or stony, 

 or where the trees stand too closely together, the latter being always the case in 

 young woods. 



In these forests trees are not permitted to reach the full limit of their life, 

 and then, as the result of decay, to fall and remain rotting on the ground. 

 They are considered as a wood capital which adds interest to itself as long as 

 the trees continue to grow, at first slowly when the trees are small, more rapidly 

 when they are of medium size, and more slowly again when they become large. 

 When the trees die the wood interest ceases entirely, and as they decay the 



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